Pagina's

Thursday, 18 October 2012

Sepia Saturday - The man behind the window

The theme for this week is a picture (see below) showing four men involved in what I would call mysterious dealings. We see two policemen and two civilians or maybe even plain clothes men. And then there is a person looking through a window. He seems to be in uniform. So is this a police station? If this is so, does that make the bicycles official vehicles of the long arm of the law? Is the man on the left handing over a gun or is he receiving one? Is it a gun or maybe a summons? The two gentlemen on the right radiate this "I-am-to-be-here-for-ceremonial-reasons" attitude. To cut a long presumption short, I don't know what we are looking at. But I have to make a choice so I will elaborate on the man behind the window.

Those of you visiting my blog now and then may know that I publish old airline pictures, in particular pictures concerning KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, my former employer. Those posts are titled "Saved from the dustbin". Knowing this, my former neighbor and former KLM captain Michael D.send me a few pictures. They came from a shoe box he inherited from his mother. The first one shows a man and a woman descending from an aircraft stairway. The man is Charles Christian "Chuck" Harman, a Canadian captain with KLM. The lady is Mrs. D., the mother of my neighbor.

KLM Capt. Chuck Harman and Mrs. D.

The aircraft is the KLM Lockheed 1049C Super Constellation 'Nucleon' with registration PH-TFX. The picture can be dated between August 5, 1953 and February 25, 1954.

The photograph below shows a man waving from a cockpit window. He may not be as clearly visible as the man in the police station but still, it is a man behind a window! (Pffft, mission completed.) According to my source this is the same Chuck Harman but now seated in the Douglas DC-6B 'Willem Bontekoe', the PH-DFO. This shot was taken between March 6 and August 23, 1954.

Capt. Chuck Harman waving from the cockpit.

There is some unexpected drama in this picture. It so happened that this aircraft, the 'Willem Bontekoe', crashed in the North Sea, some 10 miles off the Dutch coast. The accident took place on August 23, 1954. The official accident investigation was unable to uncover the cause of the crash. It is still the most mysterious casualty that ever took place in the history of Dutch aviation.

Location where the 'Willem Bontekoe' crashed on August 23, 1954.Map ex aviacrash.nl.

The accident caused the death of all 12 passengers and 9 crew. The captain of this fatal flight from New York to Amsterdam was Charles Christian Harman...

For more drama, suspense and entertainment, please see the Sepia Saturday site.To write this post I made use of internet information viz. the comprehensive site of Herman Dekker and Aviacrash. And of course I am grateful to Michael D. for sending me the photographs and for telling me about the late Capt. Harman!

Oh. how sad. To see the pilot in the previous photos and then to find out that he went down with his plane in that mysterious crash. Wow. what a story. Very interesting post. And you even have a photobomb in that one shot with the the pilot waving from the plane and then that other man lurking on the tarmac.Nancy

I ALWAYS click on the wrong thing when leaving a comment here, I'll get used to it soon, or else learn the language! Sad story but what a wonderful photo the first one is.Now let's see if I can click on the right one to save this!

@PostcardySometimes coincidence comes your way and you see these two windows within a week. And then... 1+1=2 :)@NancyDon't think I know the word 'photobomb'. It's not in my Webster. Is it a kind of a 'pictorial surprise'?Believe the man on the tarmac is just walking towards the plane. Or do you have a different view?Indeed one can :) And fortunately Sepia Saturday people have very flexible minds!@BobI believe the photo's have been taken by Michael D.'s father who was a captain with KLM as well. And airport security then not being what it is today, he was in a good position to make photographs on the tarmac.@RobFate does not distinguish between young and old I am afraid...@YvonneI'm sure he was not the only one. We had many nationalities in our crews.@WendyYou are so right!@KatPlease see my reaction to Prenters comment. And thank you for following my blog!@HelenThank you and I'm sorry that both sites I referred to, are in Dutch...@JoyI agree with your appreciation of flying in those days but this one was just a flight with a very low load factor. Seating capacity of the DC-6B was around 100. With that number of passengers crew would also be consisting of 9 persons.@MikeThanks Mike, if the story was not so sad I would have been proud of the twist...@DawnYou did click on the right one this time :) But there are so many former Dutch people living in NZ, it should be no problem to take a quick lesson somewhere?Btw, thank you for following my blog also!@KristinAnd he was just 36 years old...

I noticed that the two pictures could not be enlarged by clicking on them. That has been corrected.

Thank you so much, you always bring to us such delightful stories(except the ending here was sad) and such great photos. I too, am one who enjoys a good mystery, and it is a shame that they never learned how or why. Something I'm sure today they would know right away. Sometimes we just never know when it's our last good-bye, so we have treasure each waking moment.

Interesting twist on the theme and such a tragic ending for the captain and others aboard! Thanks for including the link to your previous post "Saved from the dustbin." I enjoyed reading about the 3,000 images saved in the nick of time.

@PeggyI didn't know about this site. I'll keep an eye on photobomb.com! #curious.@Karen SPart of the reason they never found the reason of this crash was that only a very fragmented 50% of the aircraft was recovered. Strong currents prevented investigators and fishermen to find more.@JanaPse see my comment above. For the same reason only two bodies were found...@Queen BeeIn case you are interested, I have written 13 posts all titled 'Saved from the dustbin'. So if you have an afternoon to spare... :)@Little NellThe only "positive" thing I could discover about Chuck's death is that, although he was married, he had no kids...

@TicklebearAs I mentioned earlier, only 50% of the aircraft was recovered. I doubt whether they can solve that riddle without a substantial part of the other 50% being present. But even if they would find the remainder I don't think the first 50% is still available. Also I haven't got a clue whether our CAB would still be interested to investigate a 58 years old crash related to a not very current aircraft type.